Author Topic: What is the commercial and governmental future of Vulcan?  (Read 22859 times)

Offline panjabi

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Seeking straight facts. No emotions.

With New Glenn about to launch and hopefully become operational in 2025, what is the commercial and governmental future of Vulcan, beyond the contracted launches it currently holds?

Are there use cases (certain orbits, inclinations, payloads) that Vulcan is uniquely qualified for? Is Centaur V going to be the winning element for ULA bids? Is "space interceptor" a real possibility or vaporware?

My question arises because if New Glenn is successful (yes, that is still an "if" ) then the "redundant provider" (aka non-SpaceX) role will be taken over by Blue Origin, which will boast a rocket that can launch a larger payload to orbit and has an oversized fairing compared to both Vulcan and FH.

In reviewing a lot of the threads, and even articles online, there is a lot of enthusiastic one-sided boosters (NSF will not let me use the word, beginning with "fan", that is a synonym of air-circulator young men) on either side, that really muddies the waters.

Is there a study that takes into account the potential future government and commerical launches, their predicted payloads, orbits, inclinations, sizes and then divides them up between New Glenn and Vulcan?

Thanks in advance for your inputs!
« Last Edit: 12/21/2024 03:53 pm by panjabi »

Offline woods170

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Re: What is the commercial and governmental future of Vulcan?
« Reply #1 on: 12/21/2024 03:17 pm »
The cold hard fact is that the launch manifest for Vulcan now has more than 60 (actually close to 70) launches. ULA intends to ramp up to over a dozen launches per year in the next few years. Meaning that Vulcan will be around to at least 2030/2031, even without SMART reuse.
How long it keeps existing after flying out the current manifest, will IMO depend largely on how big the gap in price tags becomes between Vulcan and its direct competitors (New Glenn, Falcon 9, Falcon Heavy and Starship). Also in play: how many customers out there will insist on "flying on anything but a Musk rocket" (which is basically what happened with the first batch of Kuiper launches).

Offline edkyle99

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Re: What is the commercial and governmental future of Vulcan?
« Reply #2 on: 12/21/2024 03:37 pm »
New Glenn already lost to Vulcan during the NSSL competition.  Must have been a reason or two.

 - Ed Kyle

Offline RedLineTrain

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Re: What is the commercial and governmental future of Vulcan?
« Reply #3 on: 12/21/2024 03:43 pm »
Just to add a bit on to @wood170's excellent post, it is a truism of market economics that being on the wrong side of the cost competition in the long run ends in ruin.  With the magnitude of necessary investment involved in these megaconstellations keeping all but the most well-heeled governments and companies out of the game, we can expect this market winnowing process to be ruthless, brutal.

Offline panjabi

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Re: What is the commercial and governmental future of Vulcan?
« Reply #4 on: 12/21/2024 03:47 pm »
<trim>
Also in play: how many customers out there will insist on "flying on anything but a Musk rocket" (which is basically what happened with the first batch of Kuiper launches).

Thank you for a great reply. So my question was entirely in context of this: "flying on anything but a Musk rocket". That is why the question was asked vis-a-vis New Glenn. 

I am actually working on a paper that focuses on how to spot a company that will go bankrupt in 10 years.  Hindsight always makes it sound easy ("Kodak should have focused on digital cameras", ignoring the fact that in the moment they were making a killing on film sales).

Fan-young-men-ism makes it very hard to analyze FUTURE business use cases.  Both New Glenn and Vulcan satisfy the "Not SpaceX" requirement. What then, after it?

Thanks again everyone!
« Last Edit: 12/21/2024 03:54 pm by panjabi »

Offline DanClemmensen

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Re: What is the commercial and governmental future of Vulcan?
« Reply #5 on: 12/21/2024 03:50 pm »
ULA's core market was always DoD launches with some other US government launches, This became mostly NSSL. Vulcan was specifically designed to meet the exact requirements embodied in the NSSL phase 2 contract. ULA can probably stay alive based on 60% of the NSSL launches. Their current woes are largely because Vulcan was very late and therefore they could not launch their share of NSSL. Now that Vulcan will be available, they can probably count on about 10 launches/yr. ULA is very good at serving this very high-profit customer. My guess is that's all there is except for the anomalous Kuipers.

Kuiper is strange. They booked launches from everybody in order to meet the requirement for 1618 satellites by mid-2026 and 3238 by 2030, and those bookings appeared to be based on the promised launch schedules for the then-unflown  Arianne 6, New Glenn, and Vulcan, plus the (then) nine Atlas V. They even threw in three Falcon 9 contracts, apparently to make up the last numbers. This entire house of cards is tumbling down, so it's hard to know what will actually happen. The good news for ULA is that Vulcan is ahead of the other two. The bad news is that Kuiper is apparently not ready to launch at all. If the satellites were ready they would have started launching on Atlas starting any time after February 2024.

Offline StraumliBlight

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Re: What is the commercial and governmental future of Vulcan?
« Reply #6 on: 12/21/2024 05:13 pm »
Kuiper is strange. They booked launches from everybody in order to meet the requirement for 1618 satellites by mid-2026 and 3238 by 2030, and those bookings appeared to be based on the promised launch schedules for the then-unflown  Arianne 6, New Glenn, and Vulcan, plus the (then) nine Atlas V. They even threw in three Falcon 9 contracts, apparently to make up the last numbers. This entire house of cards is tumbling down, so it's hard to know what will actually happen. The good news for ULA is that Vulcan is ahead of the other two. The bad news is that Kuiper is apparently not ready to launch at all. If the satellites were ready they would have started launching on Atlas starting any time after February 2024.

There was a license modification, so Kuiper only has to launch 1616 satellites by July 30, 2026. So about 85 satellites a month.

Offline Jim

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Re: What is the commercial and governmental future of Vulcan?
« Reply #7 on: 12/21/2024 06:14 pm »
Vulcan has more on the manifest than Delta IV

Offline meekGee

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Re: What is the commercial and governmental future of Vulcan?
« Reply #8 on: 12/21/2024 07:41 pm »
What we don't know is how many of the Vulcan contracted launches have an "easy out" option for the customer.

Not just Kuipers. Basically anyone who's saying "Sure I'll sign up early to help you show a manifest, but i need this clause allowing me to migrate away if NG (or whoever) flies well and becomes more attractive."

This is not something we'll find out about until such an eventuality materializes.
« Last Edit: 12/21/2024 07:49 pm by meekGee »
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Offline Rik ISS-fan

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Re: What is the commercial and governmental future of Vulcan?
« Reply #9 on: 12/21/2024 08:49 pm »
First of all I want to make clear that this is written from someone from the other side of the Atlantic.
I think two aspects are overlooked in this discussion.
First there are three other medium launchers in development in the US.
- NGIS Antares 330/ Firefly MLV
- Rocketlab Neutron
- Relativity Terran R.
All these three launchers could also provide some of the launch requirements for the US DoD/government.
So instead of ULA being a single provider with Atlas V and Delta IV (and Delta II) before SpaceX entered the market. You could be looking at a market with six launch service providers (NSSL Lane1). ULA Vulcan; SpaceX Falcon9 & Starship, Blue Origin New Glenn, and the above three. So in this context ULV Vulcain becomes even less relevent.
Now a relevent question becomes; can some of the other launch service providers comply to all the orbit and unique mission requirements for NSSL? If this is the case, there could be three providers for lane2

But this brings me to the second overlooked aspect. Large solid rocket motor production sustainment.
The US DoD requires large solid rocket motors for ICBM's, SLBM's, Mid course interceptors and Conventional Prompt strike (LRHW Dark Eagle). This last two are newer systems that add to the large solid rocket motor demand. I think the US DoD requires some fixed annual demand for large solid rocket motors each year so the production capability is sustained. The GEM63XL used by the Vulcan rocket provide this demand.
The solids make Vulcan more expensive, but they also provide annual demand for solid rocket motors to sustain the production capability. So this is a counter intuitive incentive to keep using ULA Vulcan.
AFAIK this is also one of the argument provided to defend the SLS rocket.
« Last Edit: 12/21/2024 09:00 pm by Rik ISS-fan »

Offline DanClemmensen

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Re: What is the commercial and governmental future of Vulcan?
« Reply #10 on: 12/21/2024 08:54 pm »
What we don't know is how many of the Vulcan contracted launches have an "easy out" option for the customer.

Not just Kuipers. Basically anyone who's saying "Sure I'll sign up early to help you show a manifest, but i need this clause allowing me to migrate away if NG (or whoever) flies well and becomes more attractive."

This is not something we'll find out about until such an eventuality materializes.
The manifest appears to break into three types:
     DoD
     Dream Chaser
     Kuiper
I think it's difficult to generalize from these.

Offline meekGee

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Re: What is the commercial and governmental future of Vulcan?
« Reply #11 on: 12/21/2024 10:50 pm »
What we don't know is how many of the Vulcan contracted launches have an "easy out" option for the customer.

Not just Kuipers. Basically anyone who's saying "Sure I'll sign up early to help you show a manifest, but i need this clause allowing me to migrate away if NG (or whoever) flies well and becomes more attractive."

This is not something we'll find out about until such an eventuality materializes.
The manifest appears to break into three types:
     DoD
     Dream Chaser
     Kuiper
I think it's difficult to generalize from these.
Well we can guess a bit

For Kuiper ULA was not the big boy in the room, and the big boy does have an alternate in the works that at some point should be cheaper.  Also, JB is no slouch when it comes to negotiating.  So my money is on Kuiper being able to walk away with barely any liability.

DOD - others here know better, but for now my money is on the contracts not being moved.

DC - who knows. Will they fly?  Will they have a market? But they're likely the smallest of the three.
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Offline deltaV

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Re: What is the commercial and governmental future of Vulcan?
« Reply #12 on: 12/21/2024 11:35 pm »
First there are three other medium launchers in development in the US.
- NGIS Antares 330/ Firefly MLV
- Rocketlab Neutron
- Relativity Terran R.
All these three launchers could also provide some of the launch requirements for the US DoD/government.
So instead of ULA being a single provider with Atlas V and Delta IV (and Delta II) before SpaceX entered the market. You could be looking at a market with six launch service providers (NSSL Lane1). ULA Vulcan; SpaceX Falcon9 & Starship, Blue Origin New Glenn, and the above three. So in this context ULV Vulcain becomes even less relevent.

Stoke Space's Nova is another medium launcher in development in the US that may compete for NSSL lane 1. So Vulcan is competing in a market with about seven launch service providers.

Offline AmigaClone

What we don't know is how many of the Vulcan contracted launches have an "easy out" option for the customer.

Not just Kuipers. Basically anyone who's saying "Sure I'll sign up early to help you show a manifest, but i need this clause allowing me to migrate away if NG (or whoever) flies well and becomes more attractive."

This is not something we'll find out about until such an eventuality materializes.
The manifest appears to break into three types:
     DoD
     Dream Chaser
     Kuiper
I think it's difficult to generalize from these.
Well we can guess a bit

For Kuiper ULA was not the big boy in the room, and the big boy does have an alternate in the works that at some point should be cheaper.  Also, JB is no slouch when it comes to negotiating.  So my money is on Kuiper being able to walk away with barely any liability.

DOD - others here know better, but for now my money is on the contracts not being moved.

DC - who knows. Will they fly?  Will they have a market? But they're likely the smallest of the three.

I can see ULA's Vulcan eventually launch a total of 25 DoD - NSSL (National Security Space Launch) phase 2 payloads that were awarded on 7 August 2020.

Granted, in some cases, they might launch a payload currently manifested as one of the Phase 2 payloads on a Vulcan as a phase 3 on a Falcon 9 while a comparable phase 3 unassigned or assigned to a Falcon 9 payload is allocated to phase 2.

This would be similar to the decision to have SpaceX launch GPS III-7 and assigning GPS-III-10 to ULA.
« Last Edit: 12/22/2024 12:02 am by AmigaClone »

Offline AmigaClone

First there are three other medium launchers in development in the US.
- NGIS Antares 330/ Firefly MLV
- Rocketlab Neutron
- Relativity Terran R.
All these three launchers could also provide some of the launch requirements for the US DoD/government.
So instead of ULA being a single provider with Atlas V and Delta IV (and Delta II) before SpaceX entered the market. You could be looking at a market with six launch service providers (NSSL Lane1). ULA Vulcan; SpaceX Falcon9 & Starship, Blue Origin New Glenn, and the above three. So in this context ULV Vulcain becomes even less relevent.

Stoke Space's Nova is another medium launcher in development in the US that may compete for NSSL lane 1. So Vulcan is competing in a market with about seven launch service providers.

Actually Phase 3 lane 1 launches have been awarded to SpaceX, ULA, and BO. Lane 2 has yet to be awarded.

Offline thespacecow

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Re: What is the commercial and governmental future of Vulcan?
« Reply #15 on: 12/22/2024 03:09 am »
If ULA has a future, its parents wouldn't have been trying to sell it off AND having a hard time finding a buyer.

Also whether the "anything but Musk" segment can survive the next administration is an open question, nobody has been thinking about this. Everybody is focused on SLS even though Musk has never said anything bad about it, but he has repeatedly said ULA is a waste of taxpayer money.

Offline meekGee

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Re: What is the commercial and governmental future of Vulcan?
« Reply #16 on: 12/22/2024 03:53 am »
If ULA has a future, its parents wouldn't have been trying to sell it off AND having a hard time finding a buyer.

Also whether the "anything but Musk" segment can survive the next administration is an open question, nobody has been thinking about this. Everybody is focused on SLS even though Musk has never said anything bad about it, but he has repeatedly said ULA is a waste of taxpayer money.
Yup the manifest is not convincing anyone outside of ULA, and that's more of a fact than the contract count.
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Offline panjabi

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Re: What is the commercial and governmental future of Vulcan?
« Reply #17 on: 12/22/2024 02:33 pm »
If ULA has a future, its parents wouldn't have been trying to sell it off AND having a hard time finding a buyer.

Also whether the "anything but Musk" segment can survive the next administration is an open question, nobody has been thinking about this. Everybody is focused on SLS even though Musk has never said anything bad about it, but he has repeatedly said ULA is a waste of taxpayer money.

For DoD, USG, NASA and Space Force contracts, there will always be a "redundant" (non SpaceX) vendor.   10 years from now, with hindsight, we will all say "it was obvious it was going to be X"

In many other industries, it is relatively more straightforward to do future predictions. Intel's demise (or troubles, more accurately) were predicted nearly 15 years ago, when they stopped heavy investments into fabs.  I can tell you now that GM, Ford and Stellanis will be a shell of themselves in the 2030s due to their overreliance on trucks, the US market, their excessive labor costs, and their failure in the EV and PHEV market.

However, in the space industry (which is far smaller in dollar value than my examples above), it is harder to get a read, as some purchasing decisions are political, some are backed by a dislike of a competitor's CEO, some are backed almost as a hobby (perceptually) by rich billionaires.

In addition, the space industry analysis suffers a lot from boosterism and anti-boosterism, which shows in emotional words inserted in analytical documents (e.g "oligarch")

Based on the feedback given so far,  most contributors think ULA is the losing horse, but one contributor thinks that they have something that allowed them to beat Blue Orgin in the NSSL competition.
« Last Edit: 12/22/2024 02:48 pm by panjabi »

Offline DanClemmensen

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Re: What is the commercial and governmental future of Vulcan?
« Reply #18 on: 12/22/2024 03:08 pm »

However, in the space industry (which is far smaller in dollar value than my examples above), it is harder to get a read, as some purchasing decisions are political, some are backed by a dislike of a competitor's CEO, some are backed almost as a hobby (perceptually) by rich billionaires.

In 2024, there is no abstract "space industry", at least for the space launch segment in the US. In the US, we have:
    SpaceX - 136+ launches
    All other launches from US soil - 7 launches
It's hard to generalize from this.

Fun fact: there are twelve Falcon 9 boosters that have each individually launched seven or more times in 2024.

Offline meekGee

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Re: What is the commercial and governmental future of Vulcan?
« Reply #19 on: 12/22/2024 05:10 pm »
If ULA has a future, its parents wouldn't have been trying to sell it off AND having a hard time finding a buyer.

Also whether the "anything but Musk" segment can survive the next administration is an open question, nobody has been thinking about this. Everybody is focused on SLS even though Musk has never said anything bad about it, but he has repeatedly said ULA is a waste of taxpayer money.

For DoD, USG, NASA and Space Force contracts, there will always be a "redundant" (non SpaceX) vendor.   10 years from now, with hindsight, we will all say "it was obvious it was going to be X"

In many other industries, it is relatively more straightforward to do future predictions. Intel's demise (or troubles, more accurately) were predicted nearly 15 years ago, when they stopped heavy investments into fabs.  I can tell you now that GM, Ford and Stellanis will be a shell of themselves in the 2030s due to their overreliance on trucks, the US market, their excessive labor costs, and their failure in the EV and PHEV market.

However, in the space industry (which is far smaller in dollar value than my examples above), it is harder to get a read, as some purchasing decisions are political, some are backed by a dislike of a competitor's CEO, some are backed almost as a hobby (perceptually) by rich billionaires.

In addition, the space industry analysis suffers a lot from boosterism and anti-boosterism, which shows in emotional words inserted in analytical documents (e.g "oligarch")

Based on the feedback given so far,  most contributors think ULA is the losing horse, but one contributor thinks that they have something that allowed them to beat Blue Orgin in the NSSL competition.
There has never been a disparity in the industry such as is about to happen.

F9 vs. the rest of the world is still a battle among comparable rockets.  Cheap as it is, F9 is comparable to Atlas or Vulcan, Delta or Arianne or Soyuz. Even New Glenn, give or take.

Starship hasn't happened yet, in terms of market.

Unless someone follows suit, the next few years (2026 and onwards) will be completely uncharted territory, and predictions based on precedent will not be worth the energy expensed to type them.
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